Pokemon GO Officially Announces Major Gameplay Changes

Pokemon GO continues to evolve, with Scopely announcing major changes and quality of life improvements to how players interact and explore the game’s world. After celebrating Pokemon GO‘s 10th anniversary earlier this year, the team continues to make major adjustments and improvements to the game as a whole, including a massive update to how the Explorer Gadget works.

Coming off of Pokemon GO’s annual and popular Halloween event, the game is now rocketing towards its end-of-the-year festivities. Part of that includes the new November GO Pass, which features a higher amount of PokeCoins than usual. Free players can snag 400 PokeCoins by progressing through the pass, though Deluxe Edition owners can earn another 1,000 on top of that, settling on a total of 1,400. The November GO Pass continues the recent trend of featuring Legendary Pokemon from Hoenn, with Groudon being placed in the spotlight for this month. In addition to new content, Pokemon GO is rolling out some major changes to the core gameplay.

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Pokemon GO Evolves The Explorer Gadget With New Features

The Explorer Gadget in Pokemon GO, a device that lets the game catch Pokemon and spin PokeStops automatically for players while the game is closed, is getting new functionality. While its base behavior isn’t changing, the Explorer Gadget will also now attempt to catch Pokemon and spin PokeStops automatically while playing the game. A pink Pokeball icon will appear in-game while the gadget is turned on, indicating that it is attempting to catch or spin. Players can continue to manually do it by tapping on the creature or PokeStop, even when the pink Pokeball icon is active.

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The addition of the Explorer Gadget has been well received by many players who otherwise couldn’t access the app at certain times. While the functionality was previously integrated within the Pokemon GO Plus+ device, a premium accessory that isn’t widely available anymore, the Explorer Gadget is a nice free option available to everyone, despite a few limitations. For one, the gadget can only be used once per day and has a limit on how many PokeStops can be spun or Pokemon are caught, though if the player’s storage is full, it’ll stop until room is made. In addition, players need to be at least level 20 in Pokemon GO before the device is made available.

CloseImage via Scopely Explore, The Pokemon Company

However, that isn’t actually all that has changed with Pokemon GO. The blog post continued with even more quality of life changes to the core gameplay, including an overhauled catch summary screen. After catching a Pokemon, players will now see a more detailed and improved UI that makes rewards and catch bonuses more clear. TYhere’s now a dedicated appraisal button to reduce the number of taps to get to it, PokeStop Color Saturation has been improved for better clarity, Power Spot encounters no longer trigger a special wild encounter after visiting or winning a max battle, and the visual effect surrounding Mystery Boxes and Coin Bags have been improved.

Pokemon GO Officially Announces Major Gameplay Changes

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The changes and improvements come at an opportune time for the game as Pokemon GO has big plans later this month. Starting on November 16, Pokemon GO is kicking off its Dynamax Trails event, which not only brings back Eternatus, but nearly every Dynamax Pokemon introduced so far will have a chance of making an appearance, outside of Legendary and Mythical Pokemon. During the event, players will see more active Power Spots and, in addition to being able to catch a wider variety by participating, some will even feature a special dynamic background.